1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an acoustic convection apparatus for use in a system where uniform distribution of heat and density is needed and to a convective cooling at apparatus for cooling heat-generating components in electronic or electrical devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
As electronic devices become more complex and highly integrated, much effort has been made to improve the performance of apparatus for cooling such devices. To enhance the ability to dissipate heat from an electronic devices, such as computers or communication equipments, which contain many heat-generating components, heat should be forcibly transferred from the components to the surrounding cooling medium. As the electronic devices become more compact, passages of the cooling medium become narrower, thereby slowing the flow of the cooling medium. Moreover, in narrow passages, there exists only laminar flow without eddies. With the laminar flow, the cooling fluid is not actively mixed, which in turn prevents efficient convective heat transfer from the components to the cooling medium.
There have been several attempts to solve this problem. One of them is so called forced convection, which is to increase the velocity of the cooling medium by using a cooling fan or a pump. As the heat generation from the electronic components increases, the air flow rate should be increased by using a high powered fan or a pump. However, such a cooling system induces high power consumption and noise. Moreover, a fan or a pump cannot be easily used in very small devices.
Another approach is to shift the movement of the fluid from laminar to turbulent flow by adding turbulence-inducing material. However, these methods may suffer from noise and low reliance. The fan used for the cooling application is also being employed to enhance fluid mixing in thermal systems such as an oven, a furnace, a drying machine or a refrigerator. Air flow generated from the fan makes the distribution of temperature or density uniform to a certain degree. However, such a system also shows low efficiency because the air flow may not be uniform.